Chapter 28

Alissa

 

 

It was only a couple of days until Kayla’s birthday, the day my mom got back from her honeymoon, and of course, one of my favorite holidays, the Fourth of July. I wanted to get something really special for Kayla from me for her eighth birthday, and I knew just from being around her how much she loved dolls. So, early that Saturday morning, I grabbed Bella from her house and dragged her out to the nearest USA Dolls shop and started to peruse the shelves for the perfect reflection of Kayla herself. I didn’t want it to be too girlie because she was a strong-willed young lady and wasn’t a fan of tutus and ballerinas. Bella was happy to be out of the house, and I thought it was adorable that I could already see a small bump in her stomach.

“So,” I said, standing beside her in front of the walls of dolls. “How is that little munchkin of mine doing?”

“Good,” she said, rubbing her tiny belly. “The doctor said everything looks amazing, and it was completely normal that I wanted to eat an entire chocolate cake in one sitting.”

I laughed. “I would totally exploit that. You know how much I love food. I would definitely be the girl that gained a hundred pounds from my pregnancy. I wouldn’t even feel a damn bit bad for eating the entire cake, and I might even take out someone’s hand who tried to take it from me.”

“You are too much,” Bella said, laughing. “I am picturing you sitting on the kitchen floor, shoveling cake in your mouth and growling at anyone who even attempted to get close to you.”

“Have you told Mom yet?”

“Nope,” she said. “I have a really fun idea to tell her, and I’m going to do it at Kayla’s birthday party. I want it to be a grand surprise since it’s the first grandchild, besides Kayla of course, that she will be welcoming into the family.”

“That is going to be amazing,” I said. “Mom is totally going to freak out. You know how much she loves babies. She almost died when she found out about Kayla, and she isn’t even a baby. Mom is going to also probably drive you nuts, so be prepared.”

“This is why you need to just give in and start popping out babies,” she said. “If we are both pregnant, we would like, short circuit our mother, and then we could rewire her after the babies were born. I think it is the perfect solution to keep her from going apeshit and driving me nuts about everything.”

“Uh, I don’t think that is a good plan at all.” I laughed. “Besides, I remember what she was like during your first wedding. She was obsessed with every single detail, and she would like, call you in the middle of the night because Google got ahold of her, and she loved something she saw on there.”

“Yeah,” she sighed. “That was a bit too much for me. I mean, there was a point where we literally tried six different cake decorators. I ate like five pounds of cake that week and had a hard time getting into my dress.”

“No, you had a hard time because it was basically painted on you.” I laughed.

“That is very true,” she said. “I could barely walk around.”

“You were the penguin bride.” I laughed.

“I’m serious,” Bella said. “Just go ahead and get it over with. Start knocking those babies out.”

“Have you forgotten that just a week or so ago, I was crying in my wine glass because Ryan broke up with me? I think I might want to wait on the babies until I am more secure in my relationship. Besides, I have my hands full with Kayla, and she isn’t really technically mine. I am standing in some doll shop two days before her birthday, having zero clue as to what I should get her. If this is my test for being a mother, then I am afraid that I might be failing miserably.”

“No,” she said. “You know that if you were failing, Ryan is a tough enough dude that he would break things off. You’ve always had a serious ability to work with children. It is like one of your life gifts, which will come in handy when this little bean comes out rocking and rolling like her mother and father.”

I laughed loudly, scanning the dolls and thinking about how absurd it was for me to be talking about having children. I had only just started a relationship with Ryan, and there were specific societal guidelines for these kinds of things. My mood went from laughing to serious really quickly when I realized that the thought of a long-term future with Ryan was something I had already given some thought to. The whole, forever thing, I hadn’t figure out yet, but I definitely could see myself in his life, in this capacity, for a very long time. I could truly see a rest of our lives kind of relationship with Ryan. It was a staggering revelation, and I moved across the room to avoid Bella noticing my change in personality. The last thing I wanted to do was admit that I was thinking about the long-term with him, and not just the here and now. I didn’t want to have her freak out and go crazy, thinking I was already halfway down the aisle.

“How about this one?” Bella held up a military-themed doll, but I shook my head and wrinkled my nose.

Of all the things that Kayla was not, was a girl that I could see growing into being a member of the military. She had very strong views on the world from a seven-year-old’s perspective, and I could tell she had a little bit of Bella’s peace, love, and free-spiritedness inside of her. I didn’t want to bring that conversation up at her birthday party. I also didn’t want to go with any of the stereotypical “girl” jobs like seamstress, which I was pretty sure they didn’t have, stay-at-home mom, ballerina, secretary, and any of the other ones that had a history of oppression for women. I wanted her to feel like she was powerful enough to do any job, no matter who historically worked in that profession.

After several more rejected ideas, I was about to reach the end of the wall of dolls and disappointment started to creep into my chest. However, as I walked forward, I could see a doll in a white baseball uniform, holding a glove and a bat. If nothing else was perfect about my child intuition, this was exactly the thing that Kayla would love. She was a huge baseball fan, and now that I was back, I was going to press Ryan to start taking us as a family to the games.

I grabbed the doll and turned to Bella, holding it against me and smiling big. Bella laughed and nodded, remembering what I told her about Kayla and how much she liked baseball. I walked up to the front and paid for the doll, standing to the side to wait for them to gift wrap it for me since I was the worst present wrapper to ever walk the earth. I watched as Bella wandered through the rows and rows of dolls, rubbing her tummy and humming a sweet tune. I hadn’t realized until that moment right then how good of a mother that Bella was going to be. Sure, she was a bit flighty and had some seriously different views on life, but she was also incredibly caring and had been motherly to me for as long as I could remember.

I nodded to Bella as I grabbed the wrapped box and started heading for the door. I was so excited about the doll, I wanted to give it to her straight away, but I knew that would mean I would have to pick out another present and that was not going to happen. Shopping was not really something I liked unless I was shopping for someone else’s house for work purposes.

“Do you think Christina will show up?” Bella asked.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “Ryan hasn’t heard from her at all. He left an invitation to the party on her voicemail, but she didn’t say a word back. I am pretty sure he has just completely given up on the idea of her showing very much interest in anyone but herself. He is staying open to her wanting to spend time with Kayla, but she isn’t saying anything. I can’t even imagine how hard that has to be for him. On the one hand, you want to protect your child from the harm that could come with keeping Kayla’s mother in her life. On the other hand, he wouldn’t feel okay making the decision for Kayla as far as her mother was concerned.”

“If she shows up, I am going to trip into her with a piece of birthday cake.” Bella laughed.

“She is in for quite a surprise if she does show up.” I laughed. “I am pretty sure she still thinks that Ryan is living a life of solitude and depression, when in fact, he is having a blast with me.”

“I just don’t know how any of you do it,” Bella said, shaking her head. “That woman is seriously a disgrace to our gender and is exactly the reason why we get labeled in so many ways. A woman who would abandon her own child, especially at an age like six when they are really coming into their own, is not a woman at all in my opinion. Just the fact that Kayla is having her birthday party and Christina isn’t going to be there is a true testament to just how much she shouldn’t be in Kayla’s life. How can you just ignore the fact that it is your baby’s birthday? My kid is getting all of my attention on their birthday, no matter what is going on.”

“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “I mean, I agree with you one hundred percent, but it still isn’t something that I can make any decision on whatsoever. Part of me thinks that this would be a good lesson for Kayla. A hard lesson, but a necessary one. I wish that I could just make Christina disappear so that Kayla could move on and start to feel loved, protected, and cared for by me and her father.”

In reality, I was unsure about the entire thing, not knowing if I was even allowed to have an opinion about it. Since I got back, we tended to keep Christina out of our conversations, knowing what kind of impact that she had on us. Ryan would update me on her status every once in a while, but she didn’t bother him like she used to. He told me that it was because he had me, and that what she thought was irrelevant and not useful when it came to working through our relationship side by side. My main concern was that Kayla stayed healthy, joyful, happy, and kept her mind pointed to the future. I never wanted there to be a situation where Kayla was so strongly affected by an event that it sent her spiraling down like she had been when her mother had left.

This was going to be Kayla’s day, and I was going to be there to support her, regardless of who else showed up. She was now more than just my boyfriend’s daughter. She was now my little best friend, someone to be there for me when I needed it the most. And it was obvious to me that I wasn’t just in love with Ryan. I had fallen in love with his daughter, too.